Adviser Fall 2017 Dec. | Page 34

Happy Staff Equals Happy Residents P resbyterian Senior Care of Western New York, and all three of our Senior Living communities, know that our staff is the most important factor in the residents we serve living a fulfilled, happy and fun life. As many organizations in aging services know, it is not always easy to recruit and retain talent in the industry. We are lucky to have many long tenured employees with us, and they are our direct line to understanding how to recruit and retain talent. There are a few key factors we’ve identified, but the most important to retention is that staff need to connect to the mission of their work. In this industry, you are impacting lives every day, and not just the lives of your residents. Your impact ripples to their circles of friends and family. What we do is important work and when great staff is connected to that mission, they stay. 33 The question becomes, how do you connect your staff to the mission of your work? We find it happens through storytelling. Sharing the stories of the lives we impact is an integral component to connecting our staff to the mission. Staff does it every day, through of their roles. Connect to the people, to their meaning, and hope to honor them by doing what we do best, caring. It is not always easy to explain this in the hiring process, to translate what the work experience will be for new hires. We often find that a missed opportunity to connect a new team member to this meaning beco